Voice of the poor
Nan tells UN of ‘hellish’ poverty - Nan O’Brien: Mother, estate resident, lifelong-learner, Traveller and development worker NAN (Anne) O'Brien is a mother of nine, aged 47, and cannot read or write (though she is learning). She has six grandchildren and her upbringing was on the roadside between Wexford and Dublin. She is a Traveller and has been settled in Ballybrack for 20 years. Nan works as a dedicated volunteer and a development worker with Southside Travellers Action Group (STAG) CDP in Dublin. And another thing - on October 17th this year, she found herself in New York to address the United Nations on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. She made history by becoming the first Traveller to address the UN in New York. Has a Traveller ever addressed Dail Eireann? Don’t think so. Nan knows from experience what she is talking about when it comes to poverty and exclusion in Ireland. She told the UN: "My name is Ann O'Brien. I am a Traveller from Ireland. I have nine children. I grew up on the side of the road in a tent. I am here to talk about the people who are left behind, who are not just living in poverty but living in hell". "Poor people don't have enough money. They don't have rights. They haven't got an education. They are not included in the society because they can't get a job and they don't have money.
Nan O’Brien called on the UN to look at poverty in western countries as well as in the developing world.
"People think that they have no future and goes for the drugs and drink. There is not enough help and support to get them back together as a family. When you are down people push you aside even more. "People who are not living in poverty, who
were never hungry, who never slept rough, never understand what it feels like. "We need to let people know that they can stand up for themselves, that they have rights and that they can do it for other people. "I understand what other people are going through because I went through very hard times myself", she said. Nan made her speech at a commemoration ceremony on the lawn of the UN headquarters, which was also addressed by the President of the UN General Assembly, HE Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa and by the UN's Deputy Secretary General, Mark Malloch Brown. Her involvement with STAG CDP goes back eight years when Nan started doing training courses with the project. She then moved on to doing outreach work for the CDP as a volunteer. She became involved with a human rights organisation, ATD Fourth World, two years ago and began giving human rights talks. This led to her being invited to the UN. "The problem for me is I was let down in my own country. There was no education for me. So I can't read or write, though I'm trying. I don't want to be on social welfare, but for most jobs you need to be able to read and write, and there's a lot of barriers and discrimination too because I'm a Traveller. Most of the work I do is voluntary work," said Nan.
UN report on Ireland no use to Bord Fáilte YOU can safely say that the UN’s latest hammering of Ireland for the extent of its rich-poor gap will not be highlighted by Bord Failte in its attempts to lure visitors here. The UN’s rich-poor statistics are compiled by looking at the number of households whose income is below 60% of the average income. In Ireland, there are a significant number of families falling below this level, meaning we come second-last in the league-table of developed countries (next to the USA). Ireland has held this lowly changing ireland
position for the past number of years. While Rory O’Donnell of the National Economic and Social Council accepts the figures as factual, he says it doesn’t paint an accurate picture. "If you take those figures on their own, without knowing any other thing about Ireland, they paint a picture of a LatinAmerican country during one of the dictatorships when a tiny cabal got hugely rich while the rest of society suffered absolute poverty. Now, Ireland clearly isn’t like that," said Rory. Our poor performance in the UN survey is not necessarily because there
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are so many poor families in Ireland, but because there are so many households with two or three incomes coming through the door (which drives average household income up). "We haven’t nailed down that explanation for sure," he acknowledges. "But we do accept the figures, the (UN) data is accurate," added Rory. It is considered by the UN to be unhealthy to allow the gap between rich and poor in any country grow to too great an extent. To see the UN report, go to: www.un.org